The Development and Environmental Professionals' Association (depa)

Welcome to the depa website. We are an industrial organisation representing professional employees working in local government in New South Wales in a variety of jobs in the fields of environmental health, public health, building and development control and planning.

We take a broad approach to our responsibilities to members and give advice and assistance on professional issues as well as industrial and workplace issues. We understand what members do at work and that allows us to take a holistic approach. Read more about us...

This site will keep you up-to-date with union news and the diverse range of workplace advocacy issues we deal with daily. We have made it easy for members to contact us with online forms and quickly access information from our extensive FAQs.

Last year Shellharbour Council restructured and dislodged a couple of our members who, when it became clear there was no alternative job that didn’t involve being paid less, decided to take redundancies.

The process rolled out over a number of months, commencing with a Q&A “to keep staff informed” and asserting it was in compliance with the provisions of the Award, but under the heading “Who can I talk to?” the council listed only management and HR representatives. No mention of the unions, why would you need to talk to them?

Being made redundant, or even choosing to be made redundant when there is no alternative position for you, is one of the great traumatic experiences of working. In local government the Award is explicit with entitlements but Shellharbour took the view that while the Award prescribed termination payments based on years of service, the prescribed five weeks’ notice, or payment in lieu thereof, was an opportunity to save some money.

As a general rule, anyone made redundant in the industry, either against their will or at their choosing, gets the payment plus the five weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. That uniform arrangement across the industry exists because those provisions have been part of the Award for more than 25 years.

There have been a few councils over the years which tried to argue that the employee had plenty of notice, so they had worked out the five weeks, but invariably when the unions have pushed back (most recently for us at Willoughby last year, one of the reasons why they were nominated in our HR awards) the Council falls into line with the industry practice.

But not Shellharbour where there HR Manager Paul Kiley famously responded to depa, “common practice in other Council’s (sic) does not constitute an entitlement”. We hadn’t, of course, we just said it was a common practice because everyone interpreted it the same way.

But having reached agreement with the employees concerned, neither of whom had been made redundant anywhere previously and believed they could rely upon the Council doing the right thing, nominated their final date of service and the Council seized upon this as allowing them to work out their five weeks’ notice and not receive payment as part of their termination. Nya nya, you lose, in other words.

This is a disgrace and it’s reasonable to say that had these circumstances existed at any other council, both would have received the full payment without fuss. Many councils where we are involved in negotiating redundancies have agreed that employees can take accumulated leave to get them to critical dates like 1 January for taxation purposes, or 31 December for defined benefit superannuation purposes, and then be paid their termination payment and the five weeks in lieu of notice. They do this, because they care for the wellbeing of their employees, particularly when they are losing their jobs. – unlike Shellharbour.

This was our second dispute this year and a Deed of Release was signed by one of the members which contains a confidentiality provision, so nothing to see here.

The second part of the dispute however was we wanted the Council to sit down with the unions and negotiate a protocol about how they would do this in the future. It would allow for a proper discussion with the employees about what they wanted to do with those five weeks pay, did they want to continue working at the Council and forfeit them as part of their lump sum payment at the end, would they work a couple of weeks and take the remainder as a lump sum, or what.

However, in the Commission the council made it clear they were not interested at all in a protocol regulating this because if people being made redundant don’t take advice from their unions to understand how it all works, then more fool them. Not in those exact words but that’s what it meant.

We think that appalling and we have a nice early nomination for our HR awards in 2019. But, we’re going to press on with developing a protocol and just for fun, we prepared one which the GM Carey McIntyreshould have little trouble agreeing to, because it’s based upon how they like to do business now. It’s a joke of course, but doesn’t it damn them.

We’ll keep this one confidential in this issue but we filed a dispute with another Council over unacceptable behaviour by the GM. Our involvement quickly had the Council organise an external investigator to conduct an investigation before we were in the Commission on 11 March and on that day the Council agreed to six guidelines we proposed to keep the GM away from our members involved while the investigation continued.

But, notwithstanding that clear and unequivocal agreement, the GM ignored it on three occasions. We pursued it after each one and warned that if he continued to breach the agreement we made we would return to the Commission to pursue a recommendation or direction that he comply with the agreement.

Which we did on 20 March. The Commission agreed that while the GM may not agree with the agreement, and claimed he would not have agreed to it had he been in the Commission, that it made sense while the investigation was continuing for the GM to keep away and stop wandering through the workplace until the investigator’s report was available. Commissioner Sloan so recommended and the GM agreed.

We’ll keep you in the loop as this develops.

Robbo's Pearls...

Combined Unions defeat NSW Government in the High Court

At 2:15pm this afternoon the Full Court of the High Court handed down their judgment in the Combined Unions’ challenge to the NSW Government. The challenge had sought to have the Court declare changes to the Electoral Funding, Expenditure and Disclosures Act 1981 unconstitutional. These changes, incorporated in the Electoral Funding Act 2018, reduced limits on expenditure of third-party campaigners from $1 million-$500,000, reduced the capacity of unions working together by retaining the $500,000 limit regardless of how many unions are involved, and introduced jail terms of up to 2 years for breaches.

It’s hard to imagine any better way of starting the new year than rolling the Government. This afternoon, the High Court did precisely that and, to make our victory total and glorious, awarded costs against the Government as well.

Well done to Unions NSW for organising this and all those NSW unions - including the three local government unions - who supported it financially.

We’ve covered the offensive nature of these legislative changes in depaNews in October and November. The Government reduced the effectiveness of third-party campaigners - which also includes churches, community groups, GetUp, the NRMA, pro and anti-carbon lobbying groups, the Lock the Gate Alliance etc. Only tyrants and opponents of democracy and transparency try to reduce the effectiveness of political opponents and frustrate the right of opponents to properly campaign and run their argument.

Shame on you, Gladys and all your lot.

We’ve not yet read the judgment in full, preferring to get out the basic win or lose news, but will let you know if we find any juicy or damning bits in the February issue of depaNews.

And just to show you how even-handed we are, in the interests of balance, here is a picture of the Premier having a happier day two weeks ago waving to a driverless and passengerless train successfully arriving at Chatswood Station. No driver, no passengers, but it was on time. Now there’s commitment to public transport.